


Prisoners Call The Sky

by lanyon



Category: Guild Hunter - Nalini Singh
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena is fascinated by Aodhan, perhaps the most mysterious of the Archangel Raphael's Seven. Being as stubborn as we know she is, she undertakes to find out as much as possible. (Perhaps this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prisoners Call The Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhuia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhuia/gifts).



_He’s like coal. That’s what Jessamy said. He’s like coal and he could have been burned away but, instead, he was crushed and compressed and now he is like diamonds. It makes sense to you, in a way; all that refraction and subtraction. Aodhan once had a spark and now he is incendiary._

 

§

Everyone remembers the day Aodhan came to New York. He was supposed to glide in at night, like a satellite splintering the shadows. His arrival shook even the most stoic of Manhattanites. They knew Illium’s bright blue wings and the midnight hues of Elena’s plumes. They were conversant on the topic of feathers and angels, as though it was as predictable as the migratory pattern of so many tropical birds.

Elena remembers because she had been waiting for him. Raphael, Archangel in proud possession of a human heart (or of the heart of his human), gave little away. Her mind brushed his although, even then, she couldn’t help but resist that method of communication (not when she could use lips or voice or wicked laughter that still shocks the vast majority of their endless acquaintance).

It was hard to know how to greet Aodhan when he landed; his wings were drawn tight against his back and she could see the whites of his eyes (so to speak, for they were splintering diamonds too). By then, Elena knew how to greet each of Raphael’s Seven; she knew how to deal with playful Illium and Dmitri’s proud insolence. Jason was a fascination and a hero and Elena knew how to speak with heroes. Venom understood the language of blades and Naasir, though more of a stranger than the rest, seemed more tiger than vampire and Elena could always comprehend the mind of a hunter. If she knew nothing else about Galen, his evident affection for Jessamy and friendship with Bluebell would be enough (though she still hopes to make him crack a smile some day).

Aodhan remained the great mystery.

In the end, she gave him an awkward wave. _Your human is showing, Consort_ and her lips twisted into a smile; at least Raphael could joke at a time like this. Aodhan was like a readily-startled horse and Elena couldn’t help but wonder if he had already bolted.

“You’re welcome to New York,” she said. This was sheer defiance; that she spoke before the Archangel of New York. Raphael, fortunately, was amused.

“Yes, Aodhan,” he said. With a shimmy of his wings, he indicated the place where one of Aodhan’s feathers stood next to one of Illium’s blue feathers. They appeared in stark contrast, the very hue of Illium’s wings making Aodhan seem all the whiter. “You will find a home here.”

Aodhan looked less than convinced, his nostrils flaring slightly

There was something pure about Aodhan, but something empty, too. He was an angel lacking. Even Jessamy, who could not fly, was nothing less than complete.

(For Elena, Jessamy remains the perfect angel and sometimes she wonders if she should aspire to be more like her. If her archangel ever suspected such inclinations, he would laugh uproariously, Elena is sure).

Jessamy, of course. If there was anyone alive who would know Aodhan’s history (other than Aodhan himself, who did not welcome prying, and Raphael, who did not welcome second-guessing), it would be that most studious of angels. There might be no harm in contacting the Guild, whose resources were impressive and more extensive than most beings understood.

Elena was determined, though. She wanted to befriend Aodhan. When she inferred as much to Dmitri, he snapped at her. Aodhan was not a stray puppy to be coddled, he said (and he had seen Aodhan’s recovery, so many years ago, more dirt than angel, an exhumed closed casket of a creature).

§

After Aodhan’s arrival in New York and more than a few close encounters with helicopters and foolish journalists, Elena wondered how he could remain without bolting. It was loyalty, of course. Some fierce loyalty to Raphael and Elena could understand that. It did not differentiate him from the rest of the Seven; it was their core value, after all, but it was a start.

“You paint,” she said one day. It was a painfully obvious statement; everyone had seen Aodhan’s painting of Elena. She remained human enough to dislike any renderings of her form, from the blurred footage on YouTube to the almost-family photographs with Sarah. This portrait, though, had taken her breath away and had made her angry. It was unfair that Aodhan should have seen deeply enough inside her to portray her so perfectly and yet she could not scratch that hard-as-diamond surface.

Aodhan was too polite to grunt but she imagined it was a close-cut thing.

Another day, there was a thunderstorm. _Let us dance, Guild Hunter,_ said Raphael and they did, far from human eyes. Later that night, once Elena had regained the ability to use her limbs, and wrapped in the fluffiest bathrobe that could be found in Archangel Tower, she encountered Aodhan standing beside a window that extended from floor to ceiling. His wings, still drawn tight, were quivering and his fingertips were touching the glass. The thunder and lightning made Elena flinch but Aodhan’s expression was longing.

“Do you want to go outside?” she asked. “It’s cats and dogs out there.”

He turned his head and looked at her levelly for a long moment. “I’ve never understood that saying.”

Elena smiled and took careful steps into the room. “It was so disappointing when I was a kid. After rainstorms, I always ran out into the backyard to see if there were puppies and kittens.” Her delivery was solemn. “There never were.”

“There would have been the most awful mess,” said Aodhan.

Elena’s eyes narrowed. She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not; his delivery was flat, rather like his accent.

“Where are you from?” she asked abruptly, regretting her directness a second later when she was met with stony, snowy silence.

“Ireland,” he said, turning back to face the window. His voice lowered. “The Land of Saint and Scholars.”

There would be no more questions.

§

The Refuge beckoned. It was difficult. New York was her home and every bit as hostile as she might expect. The Refuge could be hostile, too, for all that it was a haven of supposed peace. There were too many toes to step on, and feathers to ruffle, and Elena was gifted at stirring emotions. It was why Raphael loved her and why Bluebell adored her and why Venom bared his teeth at her.

Raphael had business with the Cadre and Elena had resolved, at last, to speak with Jessamy. Any further attempts to speak with Aodhan since the night of the thunderstorm had been met with polite monosyllables. He was suffering in New York and so he came to the Refuge too.

Elena wondered if it was worse here. The ignorance of humans was easily explained. The behaviour of angels – of Aodhan’s own kind – was less comprehensible. Angels were not the sort to exchange small talk or pleasantries but, in the company of so many, Aodhan stood apart. He was certainly not human but there was something more than angel about him. His suffering was a shell but he was no coward.

Having spent some time with Sam and being told all about the youngster’s latest mischief, Elena sought out Jessamy. The two embraced. Jessamy was tall and still too thin but she remained the kindest soul in the refuge.

“There is little written about Aodhan, before it all happened, or about his parents,” said Jessamy as Elena helped her tidy up the schoolroom. “He is a mystery.” She sounded a little wistful before brightening up. “But we know some things.

“We know he’s from Ireland, somewhere in the Midlands. We know that he’s about three hundred and fifty years old.”

“Younger than Bluebell?” Elena was a little shocked. For all that Aodhan seemed ageless, so _Other_ was he, she could hardly believe that playful Illium was a full hundred and fifty years older than him.

“Have you heard about changelings, Elena?”

Elena nodded. “A bit. People used to think that their own kids had been replaced by pod people.” Sometimes, she wonders if that’s how Jeremy thinks of her.

Jessamy laughed. “Something like that.” She became more serious in an instant and Elena regretted saying anything that made Jessamy anything other than happy. “Well, when Aodhan was a child, the changeling belief was almost universal. There are theories –“ She paused. “Well. How about I tell you what is known, first?”

Jessamy sat on her desk. Aodhan was born in the mid sixteen hundreds, near the River Shannon, she said. His parents were not the most nurturing.

Michaela would have hated them, Elena thought. She probably did hate them.

§

Fiachra and Fionnuala had little interest in their son and he was often abandoned to play with the local human children. It was approaching a troubled time in Ireland, as it did every so often. British rule flexed its muscles and the natives bristled. Aodhan was likely unaware of all of this. Elena wondered if he smiled back then. Perhaps he even laughed. When she thought of Sam and the other giggling, tumbling young angels that she knew, she ached a little, for Aodhan. Raphael wanted children and Elena supposed that she did too and she was horrified to think of any child so ignored or unwanted.

Aodhan’s parents had other concerns; they wanted to consolidate a certain position of power in Ireland. It was a small island but they enjoyed its treasures; illuminated books and ancient jewelry and bright young minds. Their son was still too young to interest them.

A time came when the local humans were restless; dissatisfied with their foreign rule and equally fractious about the angelic influence in their lives. Jessamy wasn’t quite sure how it had come to pass. Aodhan was an innocent and his parents had moved to the east coast, somewhere north of Dublin. He was playing in a field and he was set upon. He was little more than a child and though he screamed for his parents, they never came. It was said that, afterwards, they razed parts of the country to the ground in their attempts to find their son but it was not enough. They did not find him. He had been tortured and he had broken and a very particular fate awaited him, in the very valley in which he had been at play..

It was a site of archaeological interest, as it turned out. Brú na Bóinne and Newgrange had recently been discovered but the humans were disinclined to uncover it further, whether through fear or simple disinterest. Perhaps they still remembered the old mythologies that clung to its ancient rocks and soil. Once, it was believed that Newgrange was a home for the Tuatha De Danann and Aodhan’s torturers must have believed it an appropriate place for him to die.  
Having been beaten to within an inch of his life, having been bound and shackled in too-tight iron chains, Aodhan was buried within the mound of Newgrange itself. It was 1699 and the defence for this evil, so common in those days, was that he was a changeling, come to spread wickedness in the local villages. Little children had been drowned and wives murdered and the excuse was always the same; they were changelings. They weren’t human. They did not belong.

There was no way that Aodhan ever passed as human but it was easy to claim that he was Other. Some mad Sí who would destroy them all, just like the British and just like the archangels. A changeling angel was an abomination.

This atrocity served no purpose other than to bring death to the valley. Fiachra and Fionnuala were not known for their mercy and, despite all the blood they shed and all the human bones they snapped, still they could not find their son, buried in a tomb, older even than they were.

Elena felt sick. Aodhan had been buried for the better part of a hundred years until further excavation at the site had revealed his grave (for what else could it be called?).

Somehow, he came straight into Raphael’s care. Perhaps, even then, Raphael had shown an inclination to heal. Aodhan had been so close to being consumed by his own venom that he might have gone the way of so many angels. Although it wasn’t at all clear, it seemed likely that he was discovered at some point prior to his final exhumation. It was the only explanation for his survival but no vampires of the time ever emerged to speak of it.

He was changed when he came back. That much was clear. The description of Aodhan in Ireland was of a beautiful child, with golden curls and snowy-white wings, the tips of which were brushed with green. Now he was hard as granite, and as welcoming as stone.

This insight into his history (and Jessamy made her promise not to tell anyone what she knew) simply made Elena even more determined. Aodhan needed a friend, if nothing else, and she would be that friend, Dmitri be damned.

§

In the days that followed in the Refuge, she watched Aodhan. She saw how patient he was with the children although he took care to keep his distance, even when leaning over a child’s desk to look at their drawing. Jessamy told her how Aodhan often came to the schoolroom to teach them about painting and sculpture. The Hummingbird seemed fond of Aodhan, too, in her distracted way. Perhaps she saw his artist’s soul. Sometimes, it seemed all the soul that Aodhan had. Michaela often watched Aodhan and, though there was something covetous in her gaze, it was clear she had no desire to possess someone so irreparable. Everyone was fascinated by Aodhan. No one talked to him, save Raphael and the rest of the Seven.

One afternoon, shortly before she was due to return to New York, Elena found herself on a craggy outcropping, at the very edge of Raphael’s territory. Her stamina was much greater now and she could fly further and further. She tried not to think about how Raphael would likely always send guards to watch over her, even when she came into her full strength. Usually it was Illium, flitting about in the skies, far above her, though occasionally Jason or Galen were the chosen ones. Elena could only cringe; it must have been a demeaning task to creatures so powerful as Raphael’s Seven. It was an argument that would never cease and she knew it. Sometimes Raphael saw her vehement opposition as something of a joke but, more often, he was irritated by it. Elena remained defiant; she was hunter born and she was human born. She could no sooner be a subservient concubine than she could dance on the head of a pin.

She lifted her head. “Aodhan. It’s you, today.” She was pleased; not that he was her appointed bodyguard for the day but because she might perhaps eke some more words out of the angel.

He inclined his head and looked out over the valley.

“I saw you in the schoolroom yesterday,” said Elena, her tone purposefully conversational. “Jessamy told me that you gave her a painting but she won’t tell me what it is until it’s unveiled at the end of the week.”

Aodhan turned his head just enough to meet her gaze steadily. “You have seen my paintings before.”

“Yes, and your sculptures. You’re very gifted.” She sat cross-legged on the ground, where the rock was warm from the sun, and spread her wings out, stretching every muscle. “Do all of Raphael’s Seven have special abilities?”

He looked faintly puzzled and then craned his neck peering up into the sky. “What do you suppose Bluebell’s to be?”

“I’d be more interested to know about Venom or Dmitri. Do they knit, d’you suppose? Or perhaps one of them is a keen baker.”

“You are very –“ Aodhan hesitated. Elena held her breath. “You are very flippant.”

Elena beamed. “Perhaps that’s my special ability,” she said. “Between you and me, I think it annoys the shit out of Dmitri.”

There was something like a curve on Aodhan’s alabaster cheek. A smile? Surely not. “I do not think that is between you and me,” he said, carefully.

Elena clapped her hands delightedly, instantly regretting it when Aodhan shuddered at the sound. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just – I knew you had a sense of humour in there somewhere. More than Galen, anyway.”

“It’s more of a sense of … curiosity,” said Aodhan, after a pause. He looked to the sky again. “I think we should go back.”

Elena looked up, curiously. “Is there a storm coming?”

“There’s always a storm coming, Guild Hunter,” said Aodhan, solemnly.

§

Back in New York, Elena fought with Raphael. He was to travel to China and even though Lijuan wasn’t precisely corporeal anymore, her power was far-reaching and unsettling. What was worse was that he was bringing Illium and Dmitri with him. Oh, Elena wasn’t Dmitri’s biggest fan but he entertained her, at least. Aodhan was to stay. Elena could only imagine how he felt, hemmed into a city so full of humans. It didn’t seem to matter that he was so exotic to them that they had learned to leave him alone. She had seen the panic on his face when humans came too close.

Having stomped away from Raphael, Elena went onto the roof of Archangel Tower. The wind was strong, whipping her pale hair into her eyes and she was too angry to brush them away.

She heard a soft tread behind her, even above the howling gale, and spun around, intending to give Raphael a piece of her mind but she stopped short when she saw that it was Aodhan.

He did not flinch in the face of her anger and perhaps that was just another sign of the damage that had been done to him all those years before.

Her voice was strained when she spoke. She did not want to shout at Aodhan. Though her progress with him was miniscule at most, it was progress indeed.

“You like the bad weather, don’t you?”

Aodhan looked up. He was a perpetual stargazer. He opened his eyes wide and he barely blinked. He looked like a Greek statue, just waiting to be struck by lightning. “I missed the weather for a very long time.” He spoke haltingly. “I like to feel the wind.”

Elena did not say that this was more than a wind. “Be careful up here.”

“I am always careful, Guild Hunter.”

Elena supposed that was true. Aodhan’s caution was legendary. “Why do you stay in the city?” she asked and now she had to raise her voice over the screaming of the wind.

Somehow, Aodhan’s soft tones still carried to her ears. “Because Raphael has ordered it.” A pause. “Why do you stay in the city?”

Elena nearly laughed. “Because Raphael has ordered it.” Her voice was bitter and she couldn’t help it.

“We’re not prisoners, though.” Aodhan sounded strangely certain. It was easy to be sure when Manhattan trembled in the gale and he could feel the air on his skin and his swords were strapped securely to his back, even as his wings unfurled. He smiled as the rain began to fall. “We’re not prisoners.”

§

 _Everyone knows that Aodhan is like diamonds, in the same way that Illium is like the sky. You know better, though. You know that he absorbs the light around him and reflects it beautifully and, for all that you dare not touch him yet, you know there is no greater prize. He will teach you patience though Raphael says such a thing is impossible._

You know better, though. You are human and changing. Aodhan, incandescence and all, is diamonds and light.

There is so much to be learned.

**Author's Note:**

> +Firstly, to my recipient: I hope you enjoyed this. I was delighted to get the opportunity to write for this fandom.  
> +The title comes from Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol".  
> +As you can see, I've taken my own liberties with what may have happened to Aodhan, while trying to keep as close to the known time frame as possible.  
> \+ Many thanks to Ruth and Laura for cheerleading.


End file.
